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Sunday, July 31, 2016

Fidel Castro’s Proclamation, A List Of Unmet Instructions

14ymedio, Havana, Reinaldo Escobar, 30 July 2016 — Ten years after the
Proclamation in which Fidel Castro announced his departure from power,
that document continues to reveal distinctive features of a personality
marked by the desire to control everything. More than an ideological
legacy, the text is a simple list of instructions and it is unlikely
that the official media—so addicted to the upcoming major anniversary of
Fidel Castro's 90th birthday—will offer an assessment of whether these
instructions have been followed.

On 31 July 2006, the primetime news broadcast brought an enormous
surprise. Around nine at night Carlos Valenciaga, a member of the
Council of State, appeared in front of the cameras to read the
Proclamation of the Commander in Chief to the People of Cuba, where he
announced that due to health problems he felt obliged "to rest for
several weeks, away from my responsibilities and tasks."

After giving his version of the complications that plagued him and the
causes that had caused them, Fidel Castro offered six basic points in
this document and additionally left instructions about holding the
Non-aligned Summit and about the postponement of the celebrations for
his 90th birthday.

The first three points of the proclamation are dedicated to the transfer
of powers to his brother Raul Castro as head of the Party, the
government and the armed forces. The order for these transfers were
completely unnecessary because it was already in his position to
undertake these functions given that he was then in second position in
both the hierarchical order of the Party and the government. It is
striking that in each case he reiterated the "temporary delegation" of
the transfer of responsibilities.

In the three remaining points he delegated (also on a temporary basis)
his functions "as principal promoter of the National and International
Public Health Program" to then Minister of Public health Jose Ramon
Balaguer; the "principal promoters of the National and International
Education Program" to Politburo members José Ramón Machado Ventura and
Esteban Lazo Hernández; and as "main promoter of the National Energy
Revolution in Cuba and collaborator with other countries in this area"
Carlos Lage Davila, who was then secretary to the Executive Committee of
the Council of Ministers.

In a separate paragraph he clarified that the funds for these three
programs should continue to be managed and prioritized "as I have
personally been doing" by Carlos Lage, Francisco Soberon, then
minister-president of the Central Bank of Cuba, and Felipe Perez Roque,
at that time minister of Foreign Relations.

Almost immediately after having read that proclamation there was an
enormous military mobilization in the entire country, called Operation
Caguairán. Shortly afterwards the former omnipresence of the Maximum
Leader was reduced to some sporadic Reflections of the Commander in
Chief published in all the newspapers and read on all the news shows.
Twenty months later the National Assembly formally elected Raul Castro
as the president of the Councils of State and of Ministers and later the
2011 Sixth Congress of the Communist Party elected him as First Secretary.

From his sickbed Fidel Castro affirmed on that 31st July that he did
not harbor "the slightest doubt that our people and our Revolution will
struggle until the last drop of blood to defend these and other ideas
and measures that are necessary to safeguard our historic process." In
the text itself he asked the Party Central Committee and the National
Assembly of Peoples Power "to strongly support this proclamation"
although in previous lines he had had already dictated that the party
"supported by the mass organizations and all the people, has the mission
of assuming the task set forward in this Proclamation."

A decade passed, the temporary absence of the "main driver" became
permanent and four of the seven men named no longer occupied their
positions. The reader of the proclamation was ousted. The programs
mentioned have become part of the normal functions of the ministries in
charge of these tasks and the "corresponding funds" (although no one has
proclaimed it officially) are no accounted for in the nation's budget.

While the 80th birthday wasn't able to be held with his presence, nor
the 2 December 2006 50th anniversary of the landing of the Granma, the
yacht that brought the Castros and other revolutionaries from Mexico, as
foreseen in his proclamation, now in 2016 all cultural events, sporting
events, productive activities, have been dedicated to his 90th birthday.

The ultimate significance of that proclamation lies not in the message
it contains, among other things because its author seemed to be
persuaded that this was not his political testament but a "bear with me,
I'll be back in a while."

The final results of this proclamation has been like a blinding
spotlight that goes out, a permanent noise that we have become
accustomed to and suddenly stops ringing, a will that ceases to give
orders, the termination of an omnipresence. The absence occasioned has
more connotations of relief than of a capsizing. There is nostalgia. The
anxiety about the final outcome has been diluted in a fastidious tedium,
like that of sitting in front of those films that stretch unnecessarily.